Nexus Caterpillar Silent ATX Case Review

Nexus is known for their silent 120mm fans, today we have their latest product in for test, an ATX case build for silence, with 2x120mm fans and foam padding it aims to keep the noise down, but can it keep a high end system cool at the same time?

Installation detailed

Installation

Nexus designed the Caterpillar with a few tool less features, one I had not seen before were the “motherboard thumbscrews”, these plastic tubes with small screw at the end help secure the motherboard easily and quickly.

Other areas like the drive bays require screws, the 5.25” devices are secured at one side:

The hard drives are installed in the lower bay and require screws at the top and bottom. This bay sits in the middle of the bottom of the case, while there was no issue installing the HDDs inside this bay, the free space at the rear of the bay is limited.

This means a large PSU will most likely not fit inside this case, the Coolermaster Real Power M520 Modular PSU fits barely, with the cables deforming the HDD bay:

The PCI slots feature a tool-less clip system which works wonderful with single slot devices, however if you have a dual slot video card (like a 8800 GTX) you’ll have to remove the plastic bridge in the middle of two, for the card to fit:

The Caterpillar is quite large in depth, so the Geforce 8800 GTX fitted nicely, although there is not much room left between it and the Plextor DVD writer:

This last photo shows you the soft rubber feet of the Caterpillar and ventilation holes at the bottom of the HDD cage:

Onto the testing ->

Comment
from Sidney@ 2007/12/10

Heat rises, right?
I never could undertand BTX type case being popular and favored by some.

Comment
from sararocs@ 2007/12/11

That looks like a nice case. I might check out Newegg to see if they have them.